The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party won control of the House on Election Day Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2018. Seats that flipped from Republican to DFL control are shown in light blue. (Christopher Magan / Pioneer Press)

The blue ring shows 16 Minnesota House districts that flipped from Republican control to Democratic control in Tuesday’s elections — more than the 11-seat flip the DFL needed to take back the chamber. In the east metro alone, from Shoreview to Lakeville, six DFL challengers unseat Republican incumbents.

In other words, the Democrats took back the Minnesota House in the suburbs.

But which narrative fits what happened? Was it a blue-wave repudiation of President Donald Trump? Activation of college-educated women? Voter turnout? Or simply a realignment of suburbs back to their natural state?

Probably a bit of all those, according to early analysis of Tuesday’s results.

REPUDIATION OF TRUMP?

Be careful about this storyline. Rural areas of Minnesota remain deeply red.

In all, Democrats appear to have flipped 18 seats, including two in Greater Minnesota. However, one of those, District 5A around Bemidji, is within four votes, which will trigger an automatic recount. The other is the St. Cloud seat held by state Rep. Jim Knoblach, who suspended his re-election campaign in October after Knoblach’s daughter accused him of inappropriately touching her for years. He has denied her accusations.

Across vast swaths of rural Minnesota, Republicans won — and often won big, by 70-30 margins, suggesting a solidifying of Republicans’ — and Trump’s — support.

Democrats owned populated areas, including much of the metro, Rochester, Mankato, Moorhead, Duluth and the traditional stronghold of the Iron Range.

SUBURBS NATURALLY DEM?

To a degree, yes.

Of those 16 suburban flips, only four went to Trump in the 2016 election — and narrowly for him; Trump carried those districts with fewer than 50 percent of the votes over Hillary Clinton. So if you want to say there was some repudiation of Trump, that might fit.

But it also fits that the suburbs, increasingly diverse and often moderate by current standards, returned to their native habitat of leaning Democratic.

In 12 of the suburban flips, voters in 2016 voted for Clinton over Trump for president but elected a Republican House member. In other words, there are ticket-splitters in these areas, and many were never Trump supporters but willing to vote for Clinton.

TURNOUT?

There’s a strong argument to be made that the key to the Dems’ victory was simply the result of turnout.

Andrew Wagner, a communications specialist and operative for House Republicans, noted “unreal” turnout surges in some suburban races — by both Republicans and Democrats. In fact, he noted that, for example, that in District 56B, encompassing parts of Burnsville and Lakeville, incumbent Republican Roz Peterson outperformed her 2016 victory by an average of 105 votes in every precinct. “The only problem,” Wagner wrote in a series of tweets, was that Peterson’s Democratic challenger, DFLer Alice Mann, bested even that.

Mann won by a notable margin, more than 5 percentage points. But Wagner’s observation suggests no one deserted Peterson.

“I suspect if you look at other races you’ll find similar trends — Republicans who won in tough seats in 2014 and 2016 improved across the board on their previous midterm vote totals, but were swamped by basically Presidential level turnout on the Democrat side,” Wagner tweeted.

I suspect if you look at other races you'll find similar trends—Republicans who won in tough seats in 2014 and 2016 improved across the board on their previous midterm vote totals, but were swamped by basically Presidential level turnout on the Democrat side. /6

Reliable data on how women voted, including breakdowns based on race and education level, aren’t available yet on state House races. So as of Wednesday, this national narrative is strictly anecdotal, or speculative, when it comes to local legislative races in Minnesota.

STATE SENATE IS DIFFERENT

The state Senate remains in Republican control by one vote, and doesn’t fit into any of Tuesday’s narratives. Only one Senate seat was on the ballot Tuesday: a pretty safe Republican seat around Paynesville that stayed in Republican control.

Dave Orrick reports on state government and politics from the Pioneer Press' Capitol Bureau. When the occasion demands, he's been known to cover topics ranging from hunting to golf. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and son.

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